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Click here to go to the previous page – Character Building – Virtue/Racial Traits, Gearing, Character Enhancements, Etc.

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Leveling

In this part, we take a break from building our character, since that is actually done… We go way back to getting to the point where you want to start worry about building your Warden… Leveling up and getting to the cap!

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The leveling process as a Warden is just like most the other classes (Beorning being the only notable exception). Of course, there are some differences. The differences you’ll notice is overall strength, when you get skills, and some other things.

The leveling part of this guide will go over various things like:

• When/How You Get Skills
• Gearing
• Traits
  • Class
  • Race
  • Virtue
• Class Quests
• Level Sections
  • Low
  • Low-Mid
  • Mid
  • Mid-High
  • High-Cap
  • Cap

This part of the guide is definitely not meant as a replacement for everything else if you are a new Warden wanting to level. This just covers some leveling specific topics. If you are new and need more information, check back earlier in the guide!

When/How You Get Skills

Like other classes, you get your “regular skills” while leveling. Gambits? Yes, you get those while leveling, but you probably want a bit more information.

How It Used To Be

You used to get all your 2-gambit skills, then 3-gambit, 4, 5. You would occasionally get an earlier one if it had a more unique effect (132 comes to mind).

How It Is Now

Now, you get them less systematically, at least in that sense. You periodically get some seemingly random gambits, and occasionally a whole line almost at once. I remember while leveling my most recent Warden, I often had to check what gambits I had since it was less organized before.

This seems like it is a lot worse now. But to the contrary, it lets leveling be smoother and you have your more powerful gambits ready at much lower levels!

Notable lines include the strong ones we have gone over in previous parts:

• 21-21212 (much stronger in blue line and later levels)
• 32-32323 (starts fairly strong)
• 31-3131 (starts fairly strong)
• 123-12312 (not as strong as previous two)

Assailment has the same idea, with its notable lines being:

• 12-1212 (starts fairly strong)
• 13-1313 (13, 131 start at similar strength)

You also get your various Muster skills as you reach the approximate appropriate level for that place. Many are also gained from bartering for the skill when you get appropriate reputation with that place’s respective reputation group. This becomes especially true later on (Moria+).

That is all we have to cover on what you get and when! Next, we will go over gearing as you level up.

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Gearing

Gearing as you level up is pretty simple. We follow these priorities:

1. Equip the best piece of gear you have.

That’s it! But, do have to choose between what is best. I find balancing these will have the best results:

• “Defensive” stats
• “Damage” stats

Defensive includes anything that will help you not die and stay alive longer without using any of your heals. Damage includes anything that will help you kill quicker. If you end up focused on one, you may have a more frustrating time leveling due to slow kill speeds or dying a lot.

Gear has a natural balance of these stats as you level! This is important because it means you do not really have to pay too much attention if a large upgrade is worth it because of stat balancing. But, if two pieces of gear are similar in overall power, but one is more defensive while other more offensive, you have to choose, still.

We go into detail on the stat priority in its proper section of the guide, but we can still cover the leveling priority here:

1. Agility/Vitality
2. Vitality/Agility
3. Might
   1. Is a weaker agility
4. Fate – Avoid
5. Will – Avoid

The first two are interchangeable based on if you need defensive stats or not.

Optimal Pieces

The best pieces while leveling have Agility, Vitality, and Might. This allows Wardens to achieve stats not usually seen by other classes since they do not have two stats that greatly affect their damage. It actually used to be worse better because Might gave the full 8 Physical Mastery that Agility also gives. Might even used to be our only main stat before Agility as a main stat was introduced. A little tangent, but they (Standing Stone Games, formerly Turbine at the time) did this because they wanted all medium armour classes to have Agility. Then came the Beorning with a main stat of… Might! Yeah, anyway…

Our best pieces while leveling have those three stats, among others.

Other Stats We Want

• Physical Mastery
  • Increases damage
  • “Damage”
• Maximum Morale
  • Increases max morale
  • “Defensive”
• Finesse
  • Decreases enemy BPE/R
  • Not worth seeking out
  • “Damage”
• Critical Rating
  • Increases crit chance
  • Not worth seeking out
  • “Damage”
• Mitigation
  • Decreases damage taken
  • “Defensive”
  • Rare to find while leveling, but strong
  • Physical
    • Main one for lower levels
  • Tactical
    • Least of the two we’d want while leveling

That is it for our stats while leveling! In the next part we will go over traits.

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Traits

1. Class
2. Race
3. Virtue

Class Traits

You can follow the priority gone over in the builds portion of this guide to know when to get which traits and what builds are good to follow. Otherwise, I have made (and am making more) a leveling build video for the red line.

Now, what line to use while leveling?

Red if you can handle the content as it will go faster.

Blue if the content is harder and this allows for soloing harder, sometimes group content.

Yellow if the content is extremely easy (it allows for quicker killing from range, like a hunter or yellow RK) or you just want to be ranged!

That’s all for class traiting… Here is the link, again, for the specs part of the guide, if you missed it!

Race

Race traits applies the same idea as class traits. Slot whatever is most useful. I find travel ones to be useful, and of course any weapon type damage increase that you may use.

Virtue

Virtues make a big difference, especially the lower your level! Be sure to use them!

The general rule for leveling is equip what gives you the most. But what if you have a bunch that give about the same, or just seem really useless? We have this priority, for leveling:

1. Physical Mitigation
2. Morale
3. Agility
4. Vitality
5. Might
6. Resistance/Tactical Mitigation

At max level it is slightly different. For leveling, resistance and tactical mitigation are much less beneficial.

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Class Quests

Like the other classes, we got our class quests. They follow these levels:

1. 15
2. 30
3. 45
4. 58

Class quests usually offer decent gear. Crafting gear is still better, usually. Quest gear is often worse. Instance/Skirmish gear is sometimes better, sometimes worse.

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Level Sections

These are the different “sections” of levels, that I consider.

1. Low – 1-20 – When you aren’t close to optimized yet. Other classes have comparable damage and you don’t kill really fast yet.
2. Low-mid – 20-40 – When you start getting stronger gambits and have extremely high damage for your level. Survivability still isn’t fully optimized, but isn’t bad!
3. Mid – 40-60 – By the end of this, you have most of your skills and your main upgrades from here on will be traits. At the start, you are still working on getting the rest of your skills. Your self-sustainability goes way up in this period.
4. Mid-high – 60-75 – You’ll notice a slow in progression. There will still be some early on, especially with LIs. Later on, gear starts to become much more important in your overall power. At the end of this, you are optimized as if you were at the cap.
5. High – 75-95 – Here is where you are in a seemingly dull period of just getting trait points. Not much feels different gameplay-wise.
6. High-cap – 95-104 – You are nearing the cap! At 100-104 you might as well be at the cap with a number difference, power level wise (assuming you follow gear priorities given here). Except that can make a large difference against higher level mobs with deflection, and other stats boosted.
7. Cap – No more leveling! (Not covered in this part of the guide)

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Closing

That is it on leveling a Warden! At the end of leveling, you will be ready for some more gearing, builds, and related stuff in this guide.

That is also it on the guide, so far! The rest will consist of a FAQ and catalog.

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Click here to go to the next page – FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

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